


Placebo

by CharlotteCordelier



Series: Asclepius [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Felicity Smoak, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 18:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteCordelier/pseuds/CharlotteCordelier
Summary: So Felicity bought him a bed...(Self-indulgent h/c one shot set between S2 and S3.)





	Placebo

_Problems in medicine do not mean that homeopathic sugar pills work; just because there are problems with aircraft design, that doesn’t mean that magic carpets really fly_.

-Dr. Ben Goldacre

 

**Summer 2014**

Both John and Oliver came back from Lian Yu with head colds. Which was mostly Amanda Waller’s fault. To keep a low profile, after depositing their human garbage on the island, they had taken ARGUS transportation back to Hong Kong and from there travelled commercially under assumed names. It took Diggle and Felicity about five minutes to realize that it was Oliver’s first time travelling coach.

“No,” Diggle instructed. “Put that back. You don’t mess with armrests unless you and your seat partner come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“But my--”

“He’s right,” Felicity said. “And you don’t get to put your feet in my feet spot either.”

“You’re not even using it.”

“Oh boy.” John sighed. “Listen, let me explain to you how air travel works for the forty-seven percent.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means people who actually pay their fair share of taxes, is what it means.”

“Down, girl. Listen. When you’re a normal person and you fly back here with other normal people, you pay for your space. Your space goes from armrest to armrest and no further. You get a footwell. And unless you’re travelling with children or particularly cute animals, you have a moral obligation to shut up. And not eat anything that smells funky.”

“And no man-spreading,” she added.

“Man-spreading?”

“You know, when dudes take a nice wide stance like they have balls the size of hot air balloons? No one is fooled.”

Digg cleared his throat. Oliver, looking resolute, shifted his weight, very carefully un-man-spreading. But he was favoring the right knee again. It was going to be a long flight, even with a layover in Honolulu.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Digg, I’m assuming you can treat this whole flight as rack time?”

“Hooah.”

“Up, up, up. Everybody up, into the aisle.” Gratifyingly, they obeyed. Seeing them stooped there, she had a new appreciation for how difficult it must be to fly when you were six foot plus. Felicity was very happy to be travel-sized at that moment. “John, you’re on the window. Go to sleep.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Felicity climbed in after him to the middle seat, her right shoulder brushing up against John’s solid bulk. She lifted the armrest between her seat and the aisle seat and patted it.

“I thought there were armrest rules.” Oliver lowered himself into the seat, wincing.

“I’m waiving them for you. Extenuating circumstances.” She kicked her shoes off and pulled her knees up to her chest. “Okay, now turn a little and put your right leg down there.”

“I’m breaking the foot space rules, too?” He smiled.

“Don’t get used to it.

He moved his leg, visibly relaxing as he was able to fully extend it.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yeah. But are you going to be comfortable? It’s a long flight.”

“Yeah, um...if I can just use you as a little bit of a pillow?” _Don’t blush, Felicity_.

“Any time.”

 _Shit. I’m blushing._ Tucking herself into a ball, she turned so that her feet sat against Digg’s armrest and her shoulders nestled against Oliver’s side. He shifted slightly, making himself more comfortable.

“You can lean back more,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She did, trying not to enjoy the warmth of his torso, and then felt Oliver resting his forehead on the top of her head. She was immediately grateful for the ARGUS facility in Hong Kong where she’d had a chance to shower properly. In front of her, Diggle was already asleep. Behind her, she felt Oliver’s inhalations and exhalations grow more natural. Felicity realized she was smiling.

Unbeknownst to them, two rows up, someone’s kid was shedding the rhinovirus from hell.

 

* * *

 

“Why aren’t you sick?”

“I’m an ER doctor, Oliver. I have an immune system like the Legion of Boom.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I know. Go home.”

“I have--” He paused, held up a finger, and sneezed into his crooked elbow hard enough to make her wince. “I have to...to…” He held up a finger again, and the process repeated itself. Twice.

“Go home,” she said. “Watch some SportsCenter. Educate yourself.”

“We have to find that cook house.” He blew his nose for what seemed like forever.

“I will find the cook house. Go to bed. Please. You are diseased. It’s hard for me to watch.”

Diggle came back a few days later, happy to have had a little downtime with his expectant wife. Felicity suspected that he secretly enjoyed being fussed over and that Lyla was an aggressive and comprehensive fusser. Oliver, on the other hand, malingered, glassy-eyed and congested. For two weeks. Felicity physically restrained herself from hovering, but it was hard to fight instinct. Then she would remember the way the syringe of Mirakuru cure had felt when he pressed it into her hand in the empty foyer of the Queen mansion and the better angels of her nature would prevail. _Hands off Oliver Queen_.

At least until the morning she came downstairs in the foundry before work to pick up the ID badge (the authentic one) she’d left behind. She’d been using one of her fakes, but she hadn’t had time to program its fob and the nursing staff was getting suspicious of why she couldn’t unlock any doors. She would have retrieved the badge sooner, but she’d been pulling doubles for six days running, because one resident had broken his arm playing trampoline beer pong (which, really they should all be too old for at this point) and another was out of state with a dying mother (Felicity quietly tried and failed not to resent people who still had mothers).  


She was supposed to get in, get her real badge, and literally run through the drizzle to punch in at Glades Memorial on time for shift one of two. Instead, she found Oliver, laying on the concrete floor and coughing and retching at the same time. Felicity gaped, absolutely speechless, and realized that he was so out of it that he hadn’t noticed her entry.

“You’ve been sleeping on _the fucking floor_?” she yelled.

He startled, coughing even harder, and pushing himself up to a seated position and wrapping a comforter around him.

“The floor, Oliver? The floor?”

“I have...blankets.” He hacked up something that sounded solid and swallowed it.

“Oh. No. This is. I just. You’re. You.”

“Are you okay?” he asked hoarsely.

“I’m counting backwards from twenty, which is what they teach you to do when you’re getting ready to slap a patient.” She closed her eyes and imagined herself breathing in calm clear air and breathing out black smoke.

“You’re not done yet? From twenty?”

“I’m trying other languages.”

“Okay.”

When she trusted herself not to do actual violence, she knelt in the blanket pile next to Oliver. Up close, he looked gray and clammy. She put her palm against his forehead and frowned.

“How long have you been like this?”

“Couple days. It’s not that bad. I went out last night.”

“You went. It rained all. The whole. Wait--wasn’t the mission surveillance? Rooftop surveillance? And it rained.”

He coughed again and, opportunistically, she pulled the collar of his henley down and put her ear next to his chest. Oh, she was going to kill him. Kill him until he was dead and then a little more for good measure.

“Take your shirt off. I’m getting my stethoscope.” She stood up and grabbed her bag, dragging it back to the world’s saddest indoor campsite. Oliver’s shirt was off and he was rubbing vaguely at his tattoo. “Deep breaths for me,” she said. “Deep as you can.”

With her stethoscope, the sound was even clearer--a noise like kindling catching. He coughed again and she could hear the crud in his chest and it wasn’t moving much. With her free hand, she reached for his wrist and felt for the radial pulse.

“How long has your chest been hurting?”

“It’s not.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she said, now serious as a stroke. “I will call Thea. I will call Laurel. I will knock you out and admit you to the hospital and then I will call Walter, too, and I will let all those people visit you in your hospital room and bring you ugly flowers.”

“Jesus.”

“How long?”

“Last day or so.”

“You didn’t call me.”

“You’ve been working sixteen hour--”

“You always call me. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.”

He nodded, managing to look both chastened and charming. It wasn’t fair to mortal men.

“What color is the crap you’re coughing up?”

“Green and orange. Mostly. Some pink.”

“Put your shirt back on. I have to make a phone call.” She blew a breath out, called the hospital, and asked them to page her favorite trauma surgeon. “Dr. Kanerva?”

“Felicity, hello. I’ve told you, you can call me Ilmari.”

“Sure,” she lied. Finnish names were truly unreasonable. “Um. Do you remember, a few months back, our John Doe with the dislocated patella?”

“Ah. I do recall a few, very vague, details.”

“Well, I’ve run into him, and he’s not feeling so well.”

“Unfortunately, it’s a rather busy time. The middle of the day. Is there no chance that he could be admitted as...whosoever?”

“Whosoever doesn’t currently have health insurance of any kind. He can’t afford it.”

“Damn.”

“I think I can handle it. No arterial bleeding. But I was hoping to borrow your car. I wouldn’t normally even presume, but the weather is bad, even for Starling, and my bicycle isn’t exactly--”

“It’s fine. I’ll meet you at the staff entrance with my keys in ten minutes.”

“Thank you,” she said, a wave of relief rolling over her as she hung up.

“Are hospital visits really that expensive?”

“עשרים, תשע-עשרה, שמונה-עשרה, שבע-עשרה …"  


* * *

 

He didn’t ask where they were going in Dr. Kanerva’s battered Tacoma, nor did he seem interested enough to care. That was as clear a sign as any that Oliver Queen felt like death warmed over. At stoplights, she reached over and felt his forehead again. Still too hot, but not hotter.

“Not very scientific,” he muttered.

“I’m not going to be lectured to by a man who treats his pneumonia by chewing crabgrass and sleeping on concrete floors.”

“It’s not crabgrass. Wait--pneumonia?”

“Yes, genius.”

“No, it’s just, like a chest cold.”

“Sure, Fantine.”

“I don’t know what--” The words caught in his throat and he bent over double, coughing so hard that he gagged several times.

“Yes, Oliver, you have pneumonia. You’re presenting with bilateral crepitations, fever, an elevated-by-your-standards pulse, chest pain, and a cough that makes you puke. Have you been anywhere near a hospital since we got back from Lian Yu? A doctor’s office? Anything like that?”

“No,” he croaked. “I haven’t been sick.”

She treated him to her most withering stare. He folded back into his seat, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Those will be the shaking chills.”

“What?”

“Your body is preparing to fight the infection by raising your temperature. Your immune system sends signals to the hypothalamus to increase your set point. Your hypothalamus, fooled, tells you that you’re cold because you’re below the set point. Therefore, you feel cold and the shivering reflex is tripped to help raise your body temperature.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there.” Felicity found a parking spot just across the street from her building, but she was mentally cursing herself for not moving into a building with an elevator. It had just seemed like such a big victory, moving out of Digg’s place after being cleared to manage two flights of stairs. She should have known the day would come when she’d have to drug someone upstairs and into bed, and not the fun way.

Oliver, master of the salmon ladder, slayer of many oversized tires, was panting when they reached the top of the stairs. By silent agreement, they paused before making their way down the hall to her little studio. Biting her tongue firmly, she managed not to offer assistance.

“I bought a chair,” she said, pointing to the wicker papasan.

“Very...nice.” Moving like an old man, he approached and lowered himself into it.

“I’m going to go steam up the bathroom,” she said. “With...water. Hot water. And then I want you to take a very lukewarm shower while I get the bed set up.”

“I can--”

“I swear to G-d, Oliver, if you say one more word about a floor, I will call all those people I said I would and then I will call Quentin Lance so he can come and gloat that you’re on bedrest.”

“You fight dirty.”

“I’m like five feet tall. Of course I fight dirty.”

Felicity stepped into her bathroom, turning the hot water in her shower all the way up. While it filled up with steam, she very quickly edited her countertop. Facewash and moisturizer, yes. Tampon variety box, no. Hand soap, yes. Dirty q-tips piling up next to the faucet for reasons she could no longer recall, hell no. When she felt like it had reached an appropriately sauna-like atmosphere, she turned the water back to tepid. She wished she had a clean towel for him, but she actually owned only the one towel. It smelled like girl soap, but those were the breaks.

“You’re up, Queen. Oh, and if you fall over and hit your head in the shower, I will take pictures before I call the ambulance, so I recommend sitting down.”

“Is that what steam does?” he smiled. “Makes your hair all curly?”

She stopped and reached for the baby hairs twisting loose from her ponytail.

“I like it.”

“I...okay. I’ll put some sweats inside the door. It wouldn’t kill you to wash a little while you’re in there. You’ve smelled better. The steam should loosen up some the gunk in your lungs. Cough up as much as possible and don’t forget what color it is.”

He made a face, and for some reason it struck her as an Ollie face, not an Oliver one.

“Or drown in your own secretions. Whatever.”

The face turned into a grimace.

“Go. Hack up a lung. Don’t fall over.”

Quickly, she stripped her sheets and replaced them with clean. At least she had two of some things. She moved her small tv to where he’d be able to see it and piled up pillows to prop himself up on. There was no headboard, but the boxspring and mattress were wedged firmly into a corner, so the wall would do. By the time she’d reached for her trunk full of supplies, he was definitely hacking up a lung. It went on for a solid five minutes before she heard the water cut off and the exhaust fan cut on. Another few minutes before he stumbled out, shirtless in sweatpants, looking pallid and disoriented.

“That was...interesting.” He was physically holding his left side now.

“Come on.” She threw back her comforter. “In. I’m going to load you up with the good stuff. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Sure. I don’t want you to be any later for work.” She helped him in and hearing the wheeze in his breath, made sure he was perfectly upright. Then she took all his vitals and made notes on a small steno pad.

“You are my work today, tateleh.”

“But--”

“Don’t worry. I’ve logged plenty of hours over the last two weeks. I’ve got lots of chips to call in.” She knew where Oliver’s veins were without having to hunt. She knew he preferred the left median vein for archery reasons. She knew quinolone antibiotics didn’t upset his stomach, but macrolides did. She knew he’d take anything she prescribed except painkillers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to--”

“Oliver,” she said. “This is me doing my job. Okay? You never have to apologize for giving me honest work.” She started a saline drip and pushed levaquin.

“Thank you, then. For doing your job.”

“So,” she said. _Don’t kiss him on the forehead, Smoak. For the love of your last shred of dignity, do not kiss him on his hot little forehead_. “What else do you need?”

He looked confused.

“You know. Popsicles? Orange juice? Ice cream”

“Why would I want popsicles?”

“Um.” She furrowed her brow. “You know, the stuff your mom or dad used to get you when you were home sick?”

“They weren’t really...those kind of parents. When I had mono, Raisa used to make consomme for me.”

“Oh.” _Do not kiss his sad orphan boy forehead, dammit_. “Well. Everything that makes me feel better my mom used to bring home from the bar at the Grand. It’s not, um, traditional. Or even healthy.”

“Like what?”

“Well, one time when I had the flu, she made me this amazing concoction and brought it home in a to-go coffee cup at the end of her shift. It was only later in life that I found out it was mostly Hennessy.”

Oliver laughed, which turned into a two minute coughing jag. Unable to control herself, Felicity sat next to him and rubbed circles on his back until it was over.

“If this gets worse, I think we’ll want to add an inhaler.” She made another note on the steno pad.

“Can I try it?”

“Try what?”

“The Hennessy cure.”

“Is this a ploy to get me out of the apartment so you can escape?”

“Honestly? I’m not really up to a jailbreak at the moment.”

“Okay. I’ll make a quick bodega run. Oh--what do you want to watch?”

“Watch?”

“This is what people do on sick days. They stay in bed and watch a crapton of television. And I have Netflix now, so the options are almost endless.”

“You pick.”

“Really?” There was so much television she wanted to foist on him. BSG. Lewis. Farscape. Veronica Mars. No, no, he wasn’t ready for Veronica yet. She needed to soften him up first. “Have you seen Iron Man yet?”

 

* * *

 

It was around the time that Tony Stark started flirting with his uber-competent assistant and chatting with his black military buddy that Felicity realized she might have picked something a little too on the nose.

“I don’t have anyone but you,” Tony said.

 _Good thing I made two of these._ Her mugs, which read FUCK THE PATRIARCHY and MALE TEARS, were full of what could charitably be called a potpourri of ingredients: lemon, lime, and orange wedges muddled at the bottom; enough honey to cover the citrus, ginger ale warmed over the stove, and a healthy tot of brandy.

“Et voila,” Felicity handed FUCK THE PATRIARCHY to him. “I call it: the Placebo.”

“This is...not bad.”

“Sometime she made it with tea. Not instead of the ginger ale, actually with it. She steeped the tea in the ginger ale.”

“Bold choice.”

“I’d forgotten about that. It was pretty good, actually. But that might just have been the Hennessy.”

“How old were you?” he asked. They were both suddenly aware that they were approaching the No Man’s Land of Felicity’s family of origin. The question floated in the air.

“Um. Eight, I think. What? It was Vegas.”

“I’m just saying, even I didn’t start on hard liquor until fourteen. Fine, thirteen. Twelve.”

“Well la-dee-da.” Felicity sipped her Placebo ostentatiously, pinkie out.

By the end of the movie, Oliver was dozing. He was still upright, but somewhat slouched, head back, and breathing with his mouth open. It was the closest he’d ever be to not-charming. And even then, it wasn’t very close. She took the mug from his hand and placed it safely in the kitchen sink next to hers, which was still half full.

“Okay, tateleh,” she said quietly, putting one hand on his head and pulling some of the pillows from behind him. “You have to lie down just a little, okay? Let me get these. There we go.”

Oliver groaned, looking at her through one eye.

“I know. You feel like crap. Those poor people germs did a real number on you.” She pulled the comforter up to his chin, avoiding the IV line. “I’m going to wake you up in a couple hours and change this and dose you and make you eat, okay?”

He gave her a desultory thumbs up.

“Go to sleep for a little bit.” She reached out and checked his forehead again, frowning.

“Felicity?”

“Yeah.”

“Come to bed.”

“Oh. No. I. That’s okay.” _The bed is lava. The bed is lava_.

“That’s what...it’s what my dad would do.”

“What?”

He sighed, coughed, grimaced. “When I was sick. My dad would come home from dinner or the theater. He’d just sit there and read the paper or whatever. Until I fell asleep.”

“Yeah--just let me, um. One minute.” She locked herself in the bathroom and splashed water on her face, which was a thing that everyone seemed to do in the movies to reset their equilibrium. It wasn’t working on her, though. Instead, she put on her flannel heart pajamas and fuzzy socks in the middle of the day and climbed onto the bed next to Oliver.

“Thanks,” he said, rolling over onto his side, facing her.

“Sure. I’m just going to watch TV and work on Candy Crush.” She propped up some of the discarded pillows behind her. Shit, he was really close. Why didn’t she have more furniture? There was at least a foot of clearance between her bed and the kitchen table. Surely there was a chaise lounge she could have wedged in there, to avoid this...domestic proximity.

“I meant for getting me off the floor.”

“Go to sleep,” she said, swallowing hard around a lump in her throat. Almost immediately, he did, twitching and then snoring lightly. Not long after, Felicity’s body began to notice that hey, it had been pulling doubles all week, and maybe this sleep business was where it was at. After about twenty minutes, she put her glasses on the window ledge above the mattress. She curled up above the covers, fully intending to nap for maybe an hour, and woke up four later listening to someone drowning.

Felicity had been a lifeguard for several different casinos downtown, so she knew drowning when she heard it. It wasn’t loud or dramatic. But it did sound like aspirating on fluid. It was a horrible noise and Oliver was making it and he was still asleep. She snatched her glasses back on her face. Okay, when your boss with PTSD was choking in his sleep, what was the best way to wake him up?

She scrambled off the foot of the bed and threw back the covers over him. Nothing. There were at least eighteen different ways for her to fuck this up. She reached out and took a firm grip of his ankle. Nothing. She gripped tighter and shook his leg gently, then with some force. Finally, Oliver’s eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright, completely awake and aware that he wasn’t breathing like he should be.

“Up,” she said firmly. “Up, up, up.” By virtue of surprise, she manhandled him to his feet while she disconnected the IV, got him into the bathroom, and seated him on the closed toilet. She handed him the small trash can just in case and turned the shower on as hot as it would go again.

“Felic...ity.” He was wide-eyed.

“No talking. Hang on.” She ducked back outside for the inhaler she’d been keeping in reserve. Then she hopped back into the bathroom, which was very slowly warming up. “This is albuterol. It’s going to knock back the inflammation and make it easier for you to breathe. Nod it if you get it.”

Oliver nodded.

“Here we go. Puff, and then you have to try and hold it in as long as you can.” _Not long enough. Shit. I don’t have a nebulizer. I should have stolen a nebulizer._ “Good job. Again.” She waited a minute, timing it on her watch, and then they tried again. “One more minute, one more time.” By that time  “That was good. That was really good.”

“That was...terrible.”

“It’s time for more antibiotics. And fluids. And then I’m going to heat up some chicken and stars. And you will eat it. All of it.”

“Can I...pee first?”

“Oh--of course.”

“I didn’t mean...to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” she lied. “That was me being doctorly.”

“Bossy,” he said.

“I prefer assertive.”

It was only late afternoon. She got him reattached to the IV and propped up for more viewing pleasure. Shifting his weight, he frowned, and she recognized someone whose body wouldn’t let them get comfortable. He was looking even more stoic than usual, which was never a good sign.

“The aching is just your immune system mobilizing itself. I promise that somewhere between the second and third dose of antibiotics, you’re going to start feeling better. It’s science.”

He only nodded as she turned on _Thor_.

“Can I have another Placebo?” he asked.

 

* * *

 

Can I ask a favor?

DIGG: Anything, you know that.

Just keep in mind, that you did say anything.

DIGG: Felicity.

I know it’s Saturday, but.

I just placed an online order for pickup at IKEA.

I need you to pick it up a bed and mattress.

And assemble it in the lair.

And then I need you to patrol tonight, because Oliver has pneumonia.

**...**

You said anything.

I bet Lyla would love for you to pick up a bassinet.

Their baby stuff is pretty cute.

And really, if your relationship survives IKEA, you’re bulletproof.

DIGG: This is Lyla. We’re on it.

 

* * *

 

Felicity piled the ice in the center of a clean hand towel, then folded up the corners and edges and secured them with a hair band. Homemade ice pack in hand, she crossed over to the bed and set it gently on top of Oliver’s head. He sighed, shivered, and pouted. There was a little peek at Ollie again.

“I feel like a cartoon character.”

“They don’t make cartoon characters that look like you. Well, maybe in manga.” She smiled at him. “It feels good though, right?”

He looked back at her. “Yeah. It feels good.”

They fell asleep in the middle of Captain America, just when Peggy was getting especially awesome. Oliver lay on his back, propped up and snoring gently. Felicity curled on her side, above the covers in her warmest jammies, because really the bed was still lava. She set her glasses on the windowsill again and, confident that he was deeply asleep, scooched close enough to where she could vaguely see the rise and fall of his chest. His breath was labored, but not desperate.

 _In and out. In and out._ Oh fuck. She was actually watching him sleep. _Close your eyes, Smoak. And hands off Oliver Queen_.


End file.
